In Our Grief
by sweetprincipale
Summary: In our grief, do we know what we're doing? Maybe. Maybe not. Buffy and Spike share a moment of escape and realization. A single-shot twist on the ending of S.2. Thank you for reading!


**In Our Grief**

**Sweetprincipale**

_In our grief, do we know what we're doing? Maybe. Maybe not. Buffy and Spike share a moment of escape and realization._

_Author's note: A single-shot twist on the ending of S.2, part of bigger story arc that I will work on when I ever get through all the other story arcs in progress._

_Dedicated to: Ginar369, Maire Ailbhe, and AGriffinWriter, who is the brilliant cover artist!  
_

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

* * *

He tried to restrain her. Maybe he watched the sword fight a moment too long, missed his chance to knock her out, drag her into the black car and roar into a world away from old ties and Sunnyhell. Just the two of them again.

* * *

She waited too long. Fighting. Playing for time, hoping that something would happen, that she could destroy the portal without destroying him, because even though she came ready to kill Angelus- she would have died to save the Angel trapped inside.

* * *

"Dru! Drusilla, stay away from there!" Spike shouted, tried to drag her back as she ran through the house, towards the statue.

"Wrong, wrong, all gone wrong!" Dru fluttered like a trapped bird, sobbing, hands clawing away from him, and even though he was healed from his injury, he wasn't strong enough to stop the demon possessed.

* * *

Buffy watched him change. Kissed him. Watched the portal behind him opening. Swallowing the world. Or swallowing him.

"Close your eyes?" She whispered, tracing the face restored to her, dying inside, wishing that a blade through her heart would work instead... and knowing it wouldn't.

A kiss, a plunge, the puzzled look, and he began to disappear, fingers still reaching for her.

Buffy staggered back, clutching her heart as if she could stop it from dying with him.

* * *

"Daddy!" Drusilla's shriek was like the screech of the hurricane winds, wild and hellbent.

"Drusilla! No!" Spike launched after her, disbelief and desperation in every inch.

But she streamed through, white form fluttering, following the broad shouldered form that had just disappeared.

The portal closed with a flicker of blue.

Two bodies gone. Two left.

* * *

_She's gone. Threw herself in with him._

* * *

_ He's gone. I killed him. And now I'm going to kill the other one. All his idea... _She turned, heaving shoulders, trembling lips.

He stared, snarl on a half open mouth, wide eyes, so stricken in horrified disbelief.

* * *

_ What did we do?_

_ What did she do?_

_ Why did I listen to him?_

_ I saved the world._

_ Some saviour, she blew the bloody thing. Kill your _own _lover, not my Dru. Not my everything. My _everything_. Oh God, my everything... _He choked down a sob, only for a second.

"You..." A broken, rasping accusation. Whiter than white fists clenching, flexing- and knowing it would be pointless.

"Me." The battered blonde agreed. The sword dropped. She dropped down to her knees, sobs wracking her frame.

He would have killed her then, cheerfully ripped her throat right out. He went over and started to do just that, when his bravado, never a winner over his all too visible emotions, collapsed.

Just like him. Beside her, but oceans apart, silent cries, building to ringing roars.

She stayed quiet in comparison, muffled sobs hidden in shaking hands.

* * *

_I killed the person I loved most in the world. The monster in his face. He wasn't supposed to change back then. Either before, or- or not at all. It would have been hard enough to- _ Her mind shut off. Everything was black and breathless.

* * *

His organs were cold and dead. Why the sudden throbbing pain then? Everything was beating, bleeding, breaking, crushed under a weight that was made by an absence. His poetic side found the tragic irony more than he could bear. Angry enough to kill something, too stunned and weak to attempt it.

_'Cause you know what, you bloody heartsick fool? _A voice of faint reason emerged from the painful tangle. _She didn't get killed by the Slayer over there. She didn't die by Angelus' hand. Nor yours. You were holdin' her back, and she struggled, claw and fang, to throw herself into hell with a cry of "Daddy!"._

_ You weren't the one she picked. _

_ Eternally._

_ How's that make you feel, William?_

* * *

Buffy winced when he threw her across the burnt stone floor, but she didn't defend herself. She'd been waiting for it.

* * *

Spike waited for her. "Come on!" He finally yelled, kicking at her while she was down. Not a fair fight, but who the fuck cared now? No response. "Come on! Get up! Get _up_!" He reached down, and yanked her to her feet.

She twisted his wrist like a child idly ripping a paper doll. "Don't." She spat, freed.

Spike licked his lips. "Why? What've I got to do to kill this bloody pain, Slayer? You got anything better for it?" He shoved her back, but crooked his uninjured hand, beckoning her to brawl, a silent goading in the midst of his all too verbal ones.

"Shut up, Spike!" Buffy hissed vehemently, shaking her head. "What - what do you think just happened here, huh?" Hurt too much to talk, to think, to process. Lashing out was good. But it didn't _feel _good. Still, words were flowing in angry rivers as they faced off, too wounded to circle, too tired to fight, and too lost to figure out anything else. "Do you think if we beat each other to death it'll fix it? I just killed my-" Buffy swallowed, tears streaming again, "I just killed Angel."

She bent, clutching her stomach, not from any blow he landed on her, but from saying the words out loud for the first time. "I killed... I -" _I can't breathe_. Buffy staggered back, air escaping faster than she was taking it in.

Spike watched her pale and flush, gasping like she was suffocating inside. _Good. Let her._

_ Maybe then she can escape this pain. The pain of knowing_, "Drusilla. Dru's gone."

_Curiosity kills the bad kitty._ Spike felt flames roasting him on the inside, searing like nothing had ever stung before. _How would it feel to say it out loud? Would it finally kill you, break your heart and dust you properly?_

No. No, it made the humans look like drowning martyrs and vampires look like tortured saints.

They both started as they heard gravel crunching in the drive. A panicked look was exchanged between one time partners and all the time enemies.

_I can't fight her bloody little band of do-gooders right now. If there are even any left to fight. _

_ I can't let them see me - I can't... I can't say what I did. Even if I planned to do it all along. I planned to kill Angelus, not Angel and I -_ Buffy's fragmented thoughts died when he seized her hand and pulled. Not down. Not to hurt. Pulled away.

"Gotta get out of here." He hissed, and then they were running, a way that he knew and she didn't.

"Where are we-"

"Shut up."

She hit him, tugged her hand free, and followed.

* * *

"Vamps like a way to get around in the day." Spike showed her the basement and the little subterranean crawl space beneath. "You follow this and it leads to the cemetery west of the big church on Oak." Spike seemed to pant as they struggled into the small opening.

Buffy went rigid. Small dark spaces. _How can I have time for a ten year old's fear issues when I just_- Her feet refused to move and her brain shut down for a minute.

_Why am I running? They'll find out. They'll find out because it's -real. Not going away._

"Are you movin' or not?" Spike looked back, then rolled his eyes and tried to drag her forward. She remained stubbornly unmoved, looking like a fawn in the hunter's sights. "It's not a trap. What would be the point of hurting you now?" Spike muttered brutally, and tried to push her ahead of himself into the narrow tunnel. "What's the point of anything?"

Buffy stopped struggling and turned, looking at two sapphire spears breaking the dark. He stopped pushing.

"I'm sorry." Buffy whispered woodenly.

Spike blinked. Blinked again. Drops fell. "Should be." He croaked, then coughed. "Sorry. For you, too."

_For you two. And those two. We were all kinds of wrong and sick, but we really loved them, didn't we? Even evil loves_.

His hand was somehow still on her arm. _Even evil hurts. _

Her breath flickered across his skin, hot and uneven, uncertain. _Even the pure ones get their hands dirty. _

_ And we're both in the same shit together. _

"What happened?" Buffy half-whimpered.

"What's _happenin_'?" Spike corrected.

* * *

Her head tumbled forward, caught on a shoulder, but the shoulder was falling. Cold drops falling, mixing with her hot ones. "Even your tears are cold?" Buffy had no idea why this made everything worse, but she cried all the more.

"Shhh. Shhh, Slayer." His hands gripped the sides of her face hard, intending to shut her up, bark an order at her. Hard to shout when your mind is reeling and your entire purpose in life just leaped into a fiery portal of hell.

_For another man. That's she's been screwing with while you were in that chair. Chair this girl put you in. _

He shook her savagely, and Buffy broke his hands of off of her arms with a burst of energy, scuffling in the small space.

Hands layered over each other, fighting off, pushing off, hissed words telling off- and somehow- wiping off.

Spike was genuinely surprised. How grappling hands, warm and shaking, were suddenly smoothing away tears as she choked on her own sobs. He stopped trying to push her away and held her in.

_He's smothering me. _Buffy panicked as she pressed to him. But realized the shaking stopped. Everything stopped for a heartbeat.

"What are we doing?" She dared to whisper.

"Who knows? Grieving?" She was warm. Soothing.

"Stop."

"Okay."

Neither moved.

Spike licked his lips.

"Don't." Buffy craned her neck away.

"Wasn't going to. You're not my type. My type- is-" Spike met wet green eyes with blazing blue.

_His one and only is dead. Along with my one and only. Of course he's not trying to- do anything. _

_ I'm not either. I don't know why I'm sitting here. _"Because it hurts too bad to move." She whispered, answering her own question.

And he must have known what it was. "Can you think of anything you an' I could do that'd make it hurt worse?"

Buffy met his eyes slowly. There was nothing to make it better. Nothing at all. She knew that. And so did he. _Smart points for not asking me that. _

_ Smarter points for asking if there was anything he and I could do to make it hurt _worse._ Because we both know. There is nothing worse left for us. _

"No." Buffy answered, and let her arms tangle with his.

* * *

_If I just keep thinking about what I'm doing now, I won't have to think about what I just did._ Buffy lay on his coat, tight legging pants pushed under her hips, along with something scratchy and bulky. His jeans, she realized.

_If I keep looking into his eyes, maybe I won't remember Angel's. The way he looked at me. The way I told him to close his eyes before I... maybe I can forget that. For an entire second. _She crashed her forehead to his, and her teeth sank into his lip, welcoming a burst of answering pain.

* * *

_I can listen to her breathe. Watch how she moves. All legs and throat, and warmth. _His finger invaded, and she bucked like a frightened filly.

_I can calm her down, press my lips against that sweat-soaked temple and whisper that it won't hurt. An' even if it does- _he pushed in and she gasped against his cheek- _it doesn't hurt worse than everything we lived through 'bout an hour ago._

* * *

_Concentrate on the feeling. Not the person._ Buffy let out a soft moan. _Big, not really fitting well, but once inside... _Her hips spasmed wider, knees scraping the walls on either side._ Burns in a good way. _

"Burns. In a good way." Spike spoke. Buffy gave him an incredulous glance. "What?"

"I just thought that. About -you."

"Well, I meant being in you."

They gave each other regretful glances. _We're taking a bad day an' makin' it so much badder._ Spike sighed. And then plowed into her. "I don't give a damn, Slayer. If it makes it messy, or complicated. I'd take any mess you throw at me. Rather than what happened today."

Buffy nodded immediately._ Any distraction. Even if you were numb, this was something you could feel and it distracted you from everything else. For a second. And a second after. _

Every second in this shocked mental wasteland was a relief. _Or a curse. That I'm still breathing._

"Jus' breathe." He ordered. The rise and fall of her ribs halted. "Don't argue with me." He pushed deeper in, made her gasp, the rhythm restored.

"You keep saying what I'm thinking." Buffy glared at him.

"Maybe we're more alike than you'd think." He laughed bitterly against her neck.

"Never." Buffy's glare turned openly hostile. "I'm _nothing_ like you, Spike."

"I dunno. Isn't the only thing you're thinking about right now is how much you wish you could stop thinkin'? Stop replayin' that horrible scene in your-"

"Stop talking about it!"

"Then you are!"

She rolled him over, and he kept her on top, embedded inside her, angrily, desperately.

"We shouldn't be doing this." Buffy belatedly realized.

"_None_ of this should have ever fuckin' happened, Cutie." He spasmed under her bruising grip, but managed a dark smile in her direction.

"Then we should stop."

"Go ahead."

She didn't.

* * *

Misery and cloudy minds make for a twisted, heady experience. Surreal.

All about pleasure or pain, no emotion, or all the emotions, all washing over you.

* * *

She washes over you. Blonde hair drifting across his cheeks. Tears and lips. Juice. Slayer nectars. His teeth broke the skin on her neck and she barely twitched as he licked away her ruby droplets.

* * *

He made her dizzy. That and the darkness, the cramped space, the strength. Nothing gentle here, yet he wiped away endless tears and wasn't able to hide his own. _Time must be warped. How long have we been doing this? Does sex last this long? It didn't before. Or again- time warp. _

Buffy bore down and he grunted sharply, releasing in her with a spent sigh.

* * *

No afterglow. No after thought. More like a haze, a minefield between the two unbelievable things that happened, things you don't want to think about.

_But they're still there. Both things. Or, one thing is gone. Lost forever. And one thing is right here. Inside. Too impossible to believe, but can't ignore it, either._

Spike looked down at her. Nervous, cloudy eyes, bitten lip, tear-shot eyes.

She galvanized him. In a strange way that he didn't understand. As if he was fighting for her instead of against her, or even with her.

_Odd feeling. Sickening, really._

"Right." Spike didn't move off of her. "That's enough of that."

She almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation and his statement.

"Now. How are we gonna get 'em back?" Spike asked.

Buffy's eyes bulged. "What? We can't get them back! They're dead! They're _worse_ than dead, they're in hell, which is - just so dead. It's eternally dead, which I know maybe vampires have trouble grasping, but-"

"Ever heard the expression 'to hell and back'?"

Buffy blinked. "It just means something horrible that you went through." She whispered.

"Can it be more horrible than livin' without 'em?"

Buffy looked like he's stabbed her, bringing it back afresh, her quivering lips opened to reply.

Spike didn't let her answer. "I don't quit, Luv." He had been pulling away, and for some reason his stupid coolness gave into her heat and he surged in her suddenly, proof of one type of stamina, if not the rest. "I don't quit. An' I know you don't either." He gazed at her steadily, hand roughly cradling her skull. "You remember that."

Crazy talk. Hope. "How?" She finally whispered.

"I don't know. I don't know anything right now. Clear our heads for a couple minutes and we'll figure somethin' out. Some way to start." She responded to him, moving towards him, and he returned, beginning a second round with bodies, minds disengaged. "So? Partners?"

She blinked. _Maybe it was all a bad dream. Or a crazy idea, made out of grief and shock and that really awesome thing he's making me feel down there when I shouldn't feel _anything_... I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. _

_But I guess I know Spike. Or he knows me. A lot alike... _Her eyes closed. _Nothing else to lose._

"Deal. Partners." She closed her eyes, a pained expression on her face. "I don't know why I'm thinking about this. This, with _you_."

He smiled brokenly and gave a feeble wink. "Misery loves company, Baby."


End file.
